


Voices in The Void

by JulianGreystoke



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Adventure, Colony, Hurt, Kirk being Kirk, McCoy gripes, Mind Meld, Missing, Mystery, Oneshot, Star Trek - Freeform, episode, injured, redshirts are doomed, short fic, starring Uhura
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 20:23:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6624865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulianGreystoke/pseuds/JulianGreystoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic was originally written for a contest which I did not win, so I can share it with you all now!  Huzzah!</p><p>Nyota Uhura is good at her job and has some of the best ears on the ship.  When a strange sound that only she notices is proving hard to track down, she is naturally one the case.  Meanwhile the captain and Spock return from an away mission on colony planet that has not been answering their hails, and Spock is injured, also by a strange noise.</p><p>It is up to Uhura and the famous trio of Kirk Spock and McCoy to track down the source of this mysterious sound and find the missing colonists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voices in The Void

Voices in the Void

The Enterprise had a certain hum. A gentle sound that made the ship feel alive and had a calming effect on all aboard her, but none more so than Nyota Uhura. She couldn't imagine the ship sitting silent in drydock, lacking the thrum of engines, the whirr and beep of sensors, the steady ping of the instruments. It lulled her to sleep at night and brought her to wakefulness in the morning.

This morning was different.

She thought she must be clinging to some memory of a dream her conscious mind had already abandoned. She blinked up at the grey ceiling of her quarters, trying to allow herself to come fully awake. It steadily became clear to her that she was very much awake and the strange noise she was hearing was not going to leave her. She pressed a finger to the ear where her communication earpiece rested during the day. Sometimes that ear could become overtaxed and leave her with harmless auditory hallucinations. But these had never bothered her when she woke up in the morning. Only after long days or particularly difficult missions.

Prodding her ear with her finger did little good, so she sat up and tilted her head to truly listen. Perhaps if she concentrated on the sound she could decide where it was coming from. It was an odd, scrabbling sort of noise. Like the scratching of a small animal at some distance. But no, she didn't think it was an animal. Sometimes the sound would change a bit and become more like a tapping, then a drawn out whine. She stood, bare feet cold against the floor. Carefully she moved about her room, testing to see if the sound would change. It did not.

She went back to her sleeping area and tried to ignore the sound as she picked out her uniform for the day, took down her makeup bag and a fresh towel, and headed for the showers.

~~~~

Even with the warm water running over her she thought she could still hear the sound. Perhaps a bit muffled by the other noises in the room. Drowned out by whoosh of a hair dryer and the chatter of the other women, but still definitely present. Finishing her highly distracted shower Nyota stepped from the stall, wrapped in her towel.

“Good morning!”

She was greeted at once by the three women already at the long mirror opposite the showers, fixing their hair and preparing for a day on duty. Kazue Tamara turned her back to Nyota, “can you do up my zipper?”

Nyota moved automatically to help her friend into her red security uniform. Nyota's mind was still lost in a world of calculations and concerns over the odd sound, which was louder again now that she was out of the shower. “Kazue, do you hear that?” she asked her friend.

The other woman tilted her head, damp hair flopping to one side. “Hear what?”

“There's a strange sound. I've been hearing it all morning.” Nyota went to the mirror and began the long process of dealing with her hair. She found it difficult to focus on straightening the frizzy mess sleep and showering had created as she tried to pick apart the sound again and again. It was relentless.

“I don't hear anything,” Kazue shrugged her slim shoulders and turned to her own reflection, making a disgusted noise at the mirror. “I still don't know how they expect us to do our jobs in these things,” she tugged her skirt, which did nothing to lower the hemline.

“It's just a uniform,” Christine said as she piled her hair skillfully into a wavy up-do. “I don't mind it.”

“You don't have to wrestle dangerous aliens,” Kazue grumbled as she fidgeted with her hemline.

“Neither do you. You're an admin,” Christine pointed out.

“I train every day, and in an emergency I'm expected to defend the ship just like every other security officer,” Kazue folded her arms and scowled. For a short woman she did manage to look far more intimidating than she had any right to. “Need I remind you that I won that martial arts competition the captain held? But I did it in pants,” she turned back to the mirror, fixing her deadly glare on her uniform once more.

“Every morning, Kazue,” Charlene Masters put in, stepping out of her own shower stall. “Write another letter.”

“I have,” Kazue gestured futilely “Back me up, Nyota, these uniforms are impossible. Nyota? Hello?”

Fingers snapped in front of Nyota's face. She had been leaning forward towards the mirror to put on her eyeliner and she had paused, the makeup held just in front of her eye. She'd lost herself in concentration again. She blinked and struggled free of her reverie. “Hmm?”

“Listening for that noise?” Kazue cocked an eyebrow.

“Yes. I can still hear it.” Nyota said, beginning to feel annoyed. She didn't like mysteries. Not on her ship.

“Maybe you should tell the captain?” Charlene suggested.

“None of you even noticed the sound. I don't need to worry the captain yet,” Nyota said, taking care to finish her eyeliner without distraction. It took a good deal of determination.

“I was out with one of the engineers last night,” Charlene offered, resting her hip against the counter as she turned to face Nyota. “He said they had been having trouble with minor fluctuations in the warp core. Maybe they're still having them and that's the sound you're hearing. You've always had better ears than any of us. You should check with engineering.”

“It doesn't sound like a warp core issue,” Nyota admitted, “but I think I will stop at engineering before I report for duty. I woke up earlier than usual, so I have a little extra time.”

“You should,” Kazue agreed, still staring down her reflection.

The other women fell back into their usual morning chatter. Descriptions of nights off, duty rosters, guesses as to their next shore leave, and what they might have for dinner that night. Nyota tried to engage as she finished her morning routine, but she found her concentration was inevitably drawn away by the noise again.

Finally, looking bridge-ready, she left the locker room and headed down the corridor towards engineering. She tried to enjoy the soothing thrum of her beloved home, but she could not shake the 'rattle scratch, rattle scratch' from her ears. She was more and more certain it was indeed coming to her ears and not from her mind. If she covered her ears with both hands the sound was muffled. She fought the urge to walk down the corridor with her hands to her head.

Nyota usually had little need to come to engineering. People stared as she passed. A bridge officer on their deck? Was someone in trouble? At some point a flighty engineer went for Commander Scott. The dark haired man smiled warmly at Nyota as he climbed down from a higher level where he had been tinkering. “Good morning, lassy! What brings you all the way to engineering? Nothing amiss I hope.”

Deciding there was no one better to speak to about possible warp core issues than the chief engineer himself, Nyota drew him aside. “I was wondering if there was anything wrong with the core this morning?”

Scotty cocked his head, confusion on his kind features, “Nae lass. Nothing to report at any rate. We had to track down a few fluctuations last night, but we got a handle on them around midnight. Did the captain send you? Why would he send you and not Mister Spock?”

“He didn't send me-” Nyota explained the sound, which still rattled for attention in her ears. Scott listened to her concerned explanation, arms folded. Never one to ignore his friend's excellent hearing abilities, the chief engineer ordered everyone to stop work and stand still for a moment. Then he and Nyota listened together. After a few moments he clucked his tongue unhappily. “I'm sorry lassy. I cannae hear anything out of the ordinary.”

“I see,” Nyota said, trying to hide her disappointment. Deep down she had known the sound was not coming from the engines. For one thing, it grew no louder the nearer she came to the warp core. “Thank you,” she touched Scotty's arm appreciatively.

“I hope you solve your mystery,” the engineer said, giving her an encouraging smile.

“I'll be certain to let you know when I do,” she said, turning to go, trying not to let her puzzlement and growing concern show on her face. She was a bridge officer after all. She'd faced far worse than an unidentified noise.

She began her journey towards the bridge. She still had at least half an hour until her duty shift, but perhaps the officer on duty before her wouldn't mind getting finished a bit sooner than expected. She was wondering if perhaps her instruments might be able to help her sort out what she was hearing.

Nyota stepped into the turbo lift to find a few other crewmen inside, including Christine. The nurse beamed when she saw her friend. Nyota tilted her head, curious, “What were you doing in the lower decks?” she asked, wrapping her hand around the turbolift control handle. The lift kicked into motion with a steady thrum. Another familiar melody that The Enterprise could sing to her, Nyota thought.

“Someone near engineering was working with wiring and gave themselves a little charge,” Christine explained, smiling ruefully. “Nothing the doctor needed to look at, but he sent me down almost as soon as I walked in the doors to sickbay.”

“Was the injury serious?” Nyota asked as the door slid open and one of their fellow passengers exited. Two more stepped into the lift, speaking animatedly to one another.

“No. Not serious at all,” Christine answered, “I told the crewman to be more careful around live wires.”

Nyota laughed, “That sounds like good advice.”

The pair fell silent for a moment, distracted by the conversation of the two crewmen who had just entered. Nyota recognized one of them as a bridge officer, probably coming off duty, she guessed. The officer was speaking to his companion, and making little attempt to keep his voice low. “-Star Fleet Command ordered us to investigate the colony.”

“But there's nothing here,” the other man, a blond wearing a blue sciences uniform, pointed out. Nyota thought she recognized him as a xenobiologist.

She also felt certain she knew what they were talking about. The Enterprise had been en route to a planet called Nervra Prime. A human colony, NP1, had been established there almost ten years before. Things had been going well, and little monitoring was required save a yearly visit from a passing Star Fleet vessel. This time, however, Nervra Prime had made unsolicited contact. The transmission had been distorted, but it might have been a distress call, so The Enterprise had been sent to investigate.

“Nothing there?” Nyota asked. The men turned, eying her. The bridge officer recognized her and his face cleared, “Yes. We haven't discounted instrument malfunction, but we have not been able to contact anyone on the planet, and we're not picking up any life signs yet.”

“Nervra's sun is highly radioactive,” the xenobiologist put in as the doors opened to let both men exit. The first moved to stand in the open door. The other continued speaking, “so maybe the instruments are having trouble because of that.”

“Maybe,” the first man looked doubtful, but he gestured for his friend to follow. “Don't worry. The captain will be beaming down later to check things out.” Both men left, the lift doors closed again and the women rode on.

When the lift came to a stop for the third time Christine moved towards the doors, pausing as they slid open with a gentle hiss. She turned around, cocking her hip to lean against the open doors so they could not close. “Are you still hearing that sound?”

Nyota realized that while she had been talking to her friend she had allowed herself to be distracted from the noise, but as soon as it was mentioned she heard it again. She hesitated, considered not answering. She saw the knowing look in the nurse's eyes and guessed she had no hope of lying. “Yes.”

“It wasn't the engines then?”

“No, it seems not. I was hoping once I got to my station I could use my instruments to help me figure out what it might be.” Nyota explained.

“If you still have time you could come with me to sick bay and let the doctor have a look at your ears, just in case”

“I don't think it's my ears,” Nyota said, but she joined her friend outside the lift. She knew the best way to solve this mystery was to rule out everything she possibly could, and with sickbay only a short walk from where she stood, it made sense to take Christine up on her offer.

~~~~

The doors to the medical bay sighed open and Nyota expected to see Dr McCoy working at his computer terminal. Instead the man was up and seeing a patient. “Commander?” Nyota was surprised to take in the lean, pale figure seated on a bio-bed, long legs dangling off the side as the physician ran a scanner over him.

“Lieutenant, are you well?” Spock asked, cocking a pointed eyebrow as the two women entered.

“I just needed to check on something,” Nyota reassured the first officer, “it isn't serious. Are you alright?”

“Indeed,” Spock dipped his head slightly.

“Would you hold still?” McCoy scolded, waving his small, whirring instrument over Spock's head. The doctor turned and his eyebrow too lifted, “Lieutenant Uhura,” he seemed to finally realized that the two women had entered. “Are you alright?”

“It's nothing,” Nyota said again, already wishing she had not let Christine to talk her into coming. She felt her cheeks color as she allowed the nurse to lead her to another bed.

“I convinced her to come,” Christine waved off the concern of the two men, “she's just had a strange noise in her ears, and I wanted to be certain she had not damaged anything.”

“Noise?” Spock slid down from the bed and moved towards her, Dr McCoy trailing behind and griping animatedly. He was ignored. “Can you describe this sound?”

As Christine selected her own scanning tool and hovered it around Nyota's head she considered her answer. “It's not quite like voices. Not exactly. It certainly isn't an ordinary ship sound, that much I know. Almost a clicking, scraping sometimes,” she wrinkled her nose. It was difficult to concentrate on the sound with the shrill whir of the medical scanner beside her ear.

Spock was nodding, his dark eyes serious as ever. Once or twice Nyota had seen amusement in those eyes. Usually when the crew was together in the mess hall, enjoying a song or a game. However, she was much more used to being fixed by the scrupulous stare which settled upon her now. “I too have found myself subject to unusual sounds this morning.” He rested his angular chin in a hand, considering.

“Then it probably isn't in my head,” Nyota hazarded. “You and I have some of the best hearing aboard the Enterprise.”

“It does seem probable that we have encountered a true sound, not merely a hallucination,” Spock agreed.

“Especially as you appear to be perfectly healthy, for someone with green blood,” McCoy set down his medical scanner and folded his arms, leaning back against his desk. “Anything?” he asked Christine.

“Nothing. She's fit as a fiddle,” Christine reported with an encouraging smile.

“So my next course of action is to check all my instruments on the bridge,” Noyta said, hoping Spock would agree.

“You determined that the sound was not emanating from the ship itself?”

“I checked in engineering. The best I can tell, this sound isn't coming from the ship.” Nyota nodded. She was pleased to see that Spock did not feel the need to investigate this himself.

“We had best both go about our duty shifts,” Spock decided definitively. “The captain and I are beaming down to Nervra Prime shortly to investigate what has become of the NP1 colony, and you have your bridge duties,” Spock dipped his head in Nyota's direction.

Nyota slid down from the bio-bed. “You're right, of course. I will do my best with my instruments, but rest assured my duties will come first.”

“Of course,” Spock agreed. McCoy made a snorting sound. The half vulcan cocked an eyebrow at his friend.

“There is more to life than your duties, but you bridge officers always forget that. No wonder Jim spends half his time on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

“Your statement is highly erroneous, Doctor,” Spock said, though Nyota thought she caught the sliest hint of playfulness in his eyes.

As Spock left Doctor McCoy touched Nyota's arm gently, “I know he'll never listen to me, but if you feel the need to come back here, please do not hesitate. If the noise gets louder, or changes-”

“I will, Doctor, thank you,” she said, resting her slim hand atop his for a moment before heading for the door herself. She waved a quick farewell to Christine and finally made her way to the bridge for her duty shift.

~~~~

The bridge was its usual bustle of action, especially with he fresh mystery of the colony on everyone's mind. Sulu and Chekov already had their heads together, speculating in low tones. The captain held a relaxed posture in his chair, which was reassuring. If their leader sat stiffly everyone knew to be worried. A cocky slouch was much more common.

Nyota relieved the lieutenant at her station and slid into her chair, tucking the earpiece into her ear before she even realized she was doing so. The action was so natural. She looked briefly towards the captain to see if he had any orders he had been saving for her. When he did not even glance in her direction she flipped a few switches to open the most common frequencies and listened. Quiet, punctuated with the rattle scratch of the sound she had been hearing all morning. Her hand fluttered over her instruments, toggling switches and pressing buttons expertly. She needed only moments with each channel to determine if she heard anything out of place.

Nyota was so focused on her task that she didn't look up when Spock strode onto the bridge. He greeted the captain, sharing a few words which she ignored. She had momentarily picked up some comm chatter from two Federation vessels who were not encrypting as they should. Her brows came together and she wondered if she should report them, or send a surge of static their way to remind them to encrypt. She was on the verge of deciding when a hand landed beside her station. She followed the arm up with her eyes and found herself looking into the captain's handsome face. She jumped. How had she failed to notice his proximity? The man had a personal aura a mile wide.

“I'm sorry to interrupt your work,” he shot her one of his gentle smiles. Nyota was often asked by her fellow female crewmen how she could get any work done on the bridge with James Kirk sitting not ten feet away. At least half of the ship (male and female) had an infatuation with the man. Nyota would always scoff and answer 'by being a professional'. Now she blinked a few times as he turned the high beams of his charm in her direction. The captain continued speaking as though he did not notice her momentary fluster. “Spock informs me that both of you have been hearing a strange noise all morning and that Bones had a look at you and determined you're fit for duty. That was smart, seeing him right away. Spock said that you were going to try to listen for the sound using your instruments. Have you found anything?”

“No, Captain,” Nyota reported, having fully gathered herself. Straight back, chain raised. Military. Her right hand absently flipped a switch, sending a blast of static noise to the unencrypted channel. She was rewarded when it went dead almost at once. Her point was made. “I've been trying all the usual frequencies, and had just begun with the unusual ones when you came over.”

“And you've found nothing?”

“No sir.”

“Can I assume you have also checked the channels for communication from NP1 this morning?”

Nyota's hand acted on its own again, muscle memory kicking in as she toggled two more switches, still making eye contact with her commander. She could just see Spock moving to his own duty station in the background. “I'm checking now,” she admitted. She had been so tied up with her sound mystery that she hadn't scanned planetary channels immediately. “Station Alpha, this is the Enterprise, we are orbiting you now, do you copy? Station Alpha, please copy, this is the Enterprise.” She paused. “I'm sorry, sir,” she took her earpiece from her ear and rested it on her lap. “I'm not picking up anything from them.”

“Damn. Alright. Spock, with me, we'll head down to the planet and see what we can find. Sulu, you have the bridge.” The captain straightened, and just like that he was off, heading for the turbo lift, Commander Spock hot on his heels.

Nyota watched them go. She wasn't one for away missions herself. Certainly she had been on her share, but she preferred the ship. Preferred her station and the job she knew so well she might have done it in her sleep. Not that it was without challenge, but here she felt she was at her best, and her best was damn good.

She put the earpiece back into her ear, a new determination washing over her. She would solve this mystery, and she would do it before the captain returned. Her hands flew over the controls, testing, opening and closing channels at lightning speed. Sulu turned in the big chair to look at her, but she hardly noticed. Channel after channel yielded nothing.

“Lieutenant Uhura?” An internal call snapped her back from her laser focus.

“Uhura here,” she responded.

“This is Ensign Casey from deck eight. I was trying to make a call through to deck four and got some kind of weird interference. Can you clear it up?”

“Of course. Thank you Casey.” Nyota tapped a button, opening the ship-wide network to her ears. Her head jerked back and she pulled the earpiece free and held it away from herself as though it a bitten her. She got several odd looks as she gingerly moved the tool closer to her ear again. That was it. That was the sound. No longer a distant rattle-scrape rasp. In her earpiece it was definitely voices. Distorted voices, far off voices, but certainly someone was trying to speak to her, and through the internal ship communications of all things. Why hadn't she thought to test the network immediately? She chastised herself, trying to piece together what the distorted voice was saying.

“Lieutenant Uhura, please report to sickbay immediately.” She startled, once again wrenching the earpiece from her as Doctor McCoy's voice rumbled through. She had turned her volume as high as it would go to listen and she felt sure that one of these times she was going to deafen herself if she wasn't more careful. She stood automatically, signaling a crewman to take her spot.

“I'm needed in sickbay,” she reported to Sulu as she set down her earpiece, a great sense of frustration filling her. She was so close to finally getting an answer.

She rode the lift, idly picking through what she could remember of what she had heard. At least she would have something to report to the captain when he returned. She was so focused on these thoughts that she hardly pondered why she was being summoned to sickbay.

As soon as the doors to sickbay slid open she had to stifle a gasp. Commander Spock's lanky form was draped over one of the biobeds, the captain hovering near by like a nervous mother hen as Doctor McCoy scanned the seemingly unconscious half vulcan. Nyota's hands flew to her lips in surprise and alarm. “Captain? What happened?” she asked, taking a few nervous steps into the room.

Kirk looked up, noticing her for the first time. McCoy made a loud scoffing sound. “What else?” The doctor asked grouchily, “they walked into danger without thinking. Again.”

“Bones,” Kirk shot a warning look at his friend, “we had no reason to predict anything like this would happen.”

“What did happen?” Nyota asked, forgetting proper formality in her concern.

“They beamed down to the planet and Spock collapsed,” the doctor answered, his tone still edged with bitterness.

“As soon as we finished the beaming sequence and fully materialized we were struck by this wave of sound,” the captain explained. “It was loud for me, but too much for Spock, with his superior hearing.”

“What did you hear?” Nyota asked urgently, her hands balling into fists, finger nails biting her palms.

“I couldn't identify it,” the captain said, pulling himself up to sit on the biobed beside Spock's. “It might have been words, but it was so loud and distorted-”

“Distorted?” Nyota cut him off, then flinched, “I'm sorry, Captain.”

Kirk did not appear to have noticed. He was watching Spock, who seemed to be waking up. Nyota drew nearer to the man on the bed. He blinked a few times. Nyota noticed that there was a small trickle of greenish blood coming from his ears. She winced in sympathy. He spotted her first, catching her eyes intensely for a moment, as though ordering her to stay with his glance, before he turned his attention to the doctor and captain.

“He's damaged his eardrums,” McCoy explained, pursing his lips with displeasure. “I'll be able to help them heal, but it'll take a few hours.”

“Can he hear us at all?” Kirk asked, leaning over Spock and putting a reassuring hand on his friend's shoulder.

“Very little,” McCoy replied, turning to fetch different instruments from a selection which Christine had just brought him. The nurse shot Nyota an uneasy look.

“I called you here, Uhura, because I wanted to know if the sound that incapacitated Spock might have been the same one you have been hearing all morning.” McCoy turned his attention to the communications officer for the first time. His expression was gentler, though still held no small amount of annoyance. McCoy always seemed to take it as a personal insult if anyone under his care dared to become sick or injured.

“I don't know,” Nyota admitted, “but I have a suspicion that it might be.” She stepped closer to Spock, raising both her hands she swiped a few easy signs through the air.

Spock watched her with concentration, then signed back. Both McCoy and Kirk were watching with rapt expressions. “What was that?” the captain asked.

“Vulcan sign language,” Nyota explained. “I guessed he might know some. I have enough to sign simple words.”

“Well I'll be damned,” McCoy rocked back on is heels, both brows raised. Nyota hid a smile. The man was rarely impressed. “What's he saying?”

Nyota squinted as Spock signed to her. He was careful to go slowly. She hadn't had much use for her Vulcan sign language classes since she had taken them in her academy days. “He believes that the sound from the station on Nervra Prime and the one we have been hearing all day are the same. I'm telling him the discovery I made while you were gone,” she began gesturing again, if clumsily. As she did so, she spoke aloud to the captain, telling him of her findings on the bridge.

When she had finished Spock seemed intrigued, gesturing her closer to him then making a few quick signs. “He thinks that if we mind meld we could put together all the information we have gathered and perhaps form a solution.”

“What? No. Are you insane?” McCoy addressed Spock with his sternest glare. It might have pierced solid stone. “I'm not set up for you to start melding with people willy nilly! I have to gather the right drugs in case something goes wrong and-”

Before McCoy could finish his rant Spock raised his hand, holding his fingertips bare centimeters from Nyota's face. A question. Her permission was being requested. She gave him a trusting smile. She knew he would never intentionally harm her. She moved fractionally to rest her face against his fingers. “Dammit Spock!” McCoy roared. He called to Christine, rattling off a list of things he needed, but this was lost on Nyota almost at once as she was washed over by Spock's mind.

It came like a wave into her thoughts. Not intruding, but forcefully present. His fingers cool against her temple, jaw and hairline, his thoughts cool in her mind. He was distinctive from her own consciousness, but she did not feel intruded upon. He was there to collaborate. “May I hear what you heard from the planet?” she asked his mind.

He gave her what she requested. Blinding, explosive, painful. Or it would have been, had she been hearing it rather than feeling it, a repetition in his mind. It came with a lance of pain, a latent memory of what he had felt, but nothing more. Her lip curled back as this slice of memory struck her, but it subsided and all that was left was the sound for them to puzzle over. It buzzed between them like a rippling swarm of gnats. To this she added what she had heard over the conn. They both dipped into the buzz and crackle that they had been hearing all morning. Like two scholars examining an ancient text, they puzzled over the strange conglomeration whirring between them.

There were definite voices. She and Spock carefully pulled these strands free, banishing the rest. He was far better at this than she was, but his mind coached her gently. The voices were still distorted. Warped beyond recognition of words. The translators could not help them here, inside this memory of sounds, so it was down to Nyota and Spock's linguistic knowledge to parse this out.

Each thread they tugged free seemed to confuse rather than clarify, but slowly, painstakingly, the words began to form. “I think it's a human language,” Nyota recognized. “Russian. Wasn't the commander of the NP1 Russian?” she asked with her thoughts.

“Yes,” Spock's thoughts answered. A warm glow of congratulation accompanying them.

She paused, listened, translated in her mind. The words spread before her as she comprehended them. Spock's mind caught them up and both of them understood. Nyota found herself wondering why mind melds were not used more often.

“Melding can be dangerous,” Spock's thoughts answered her unasked question. “Trusting your mind, your very being, to an unknown. There are inherent risks.”

“I'm not an unknown,” Nyota said, still translating at the same time. The words felt golden and fluttery in this world of two minds that she and Spock were sharing.

“Everyone is unknown,” Spock replied. “Humans especially.”

Nyota might have smiled at this, had she not felt the edge of sadness in his wordless tone. Instead she refocused on her translation. It was language clear enough, and the speaker explained what had happened to the colony, though she did not understand the technical aspects of it, precisely. She began to speak it aloud for the captain, hoping he would have a better grasp. She felt Spock understanding as well. 

Seemingly the people of the station had encountered a strange phenomenon, deeply alien in origin. The scientific terms baffled Nyota even as she spoke them, but the gist seemed to be that the more they explored this phenomenon, the worse it became. It swallowed up whole portions of the colony's people. They found themselves only able to communicate with their original world at all through manipulating sound waves. When the Enterprise had attempted to make contact the night before, and opened a channel to them, their call of distress had infected the ship's internal communications. Just enough so that those with acute hearing could detect it. On the planet they blasted their cry through every available speaker, looping it, echoing it, making it louder with each rendition until it was dangerous, at least to vulcan hearing. Nyota suspected that Kirk's own ears had suffered more than he had let on.

Finally, with this information relayed, and the sounds completely laid bare for what they were, Spock pulled away from Nyota's thoughts. His hand lifted from her face and she staggered back, caught at once by McCoy who led her to a biobed and had her lay down. “I'm alright,” she assured the doctor. He ignored this, pressing her firmly onto the bed. Christine stifled a chuckle. After having two minds bound together, Nyota found her own thoughts suddenly quiet and small. A deep, if brief, loneliness washed over her. She wondered if Spock felt the same.

“Alright,” the captain folded his arms, beginning to move about sickbay with controlled nervous energy. “We have to help the colony as soon as possible, of course.”

Spock watched his friend then cut a glance towards Nyota, who signed for him.

“You're not honestly thinking of going back down there, Jim?” McCoy snapped scowling even more deeply. “Can't we figure out this problem from the ship?”

Spock signed and Nyota translated aloud for the others, “Some sort of alien device must be at work in the NP1. We need to find and disable it if we are to save the colonists.”

The doctor made an annoyed noise and pointed at Spock, “well, you're certainly not going back. You're not leaving that bed until I clear you.”

Spock did not protest, which spoke louder than words. Nyota knew that with the damage to his ears the half-Vulcan's balance was probably affected. Before she could think better of it, she opened her own mouth to speak again. “I'll go.”

The doctor, Christine, and the captain all fixed their eyes on her and Nyota wished she could melt down into the biobed. “We could use someone who has first hand knowledge of the sounds down there. Would you be able to tell if they changed or differed once we reach the planet?” Kirk asked.

Nyota, still willing herself to be smaller under the scrutiny of so many eyes, nodded slowly, “I believe so, Captain.”

“Great. Get ready and we'll beam down in half an hour. I'll inform Mr Scott.-”

“Now just hold on!” McCoy snapped and everyone stopped in their tracks, even the captain. He turned to his friend, a questioning expression on his face as though McCoy had gently summoned him back rather than shouting as he had. “I have not cleared the Lieutenant to leave! May I remind you she just engaged in a mind meld? A dangerous Vulcan ritual that I admit I don't have a full handle on, and I have my doubts about Spock's.”

Nyota had been sliding down from the biobed and paused, her feet just touching the floor, when the doctor had barked his order. She pushed herself back up and set with her legs dangling. She knew it would do her no good whatsoever to assure the medical man that she felt fine. Nothing but an examination could sway the good doctor's opinion. She glanced towards Christine, who prepped a tray of scanners and a hypo spray while trying to hide a smile.

“Alright, Bones,” Kirk said, his eyes shining as he attempted to keep his expression serious, “I'll go and inform Mr Scott that we will be in need of his engineering expertise, and I leave Lieutenant Uhura in your capable hands. I know you'll clear her for duty in no time.”

“We'll see about that,” McCoy muttered, but there wasn't much conviction in his tone. Then he raised his voice, addressing the captain's retreating back, “and you'll need to rig up some sort of hearing protection, or it'll be the Spock situation all over again.” He shook his head as the doors hissed closed behind Kirk. “Sometimes I wonder if he has any common sense, or if all his successes can be put down to dumb luck.”

Nyota knew she wasn't meant to answer, sitting still and letting the doctor scan her and ramble under his breath as he did so. She caught a few swear words and tried not to grin. Spock was watching her from his own biobed where Christine was setting him up with a small computer terminal so he could help in whatever way needed with the new mission. Nyota signed, “I wish you could come with us.”

“It is illogical to wish for something which cannot be,” he signed back, “and you will perform admirably in my stead.”

Nyota smiled shyly. This was a compliment indeed coming from Spock. She thought of thanking him for it, but decided he would view this as illogical too. 'Illogical' was one sign she knew quite well. Her sign language teacher at the academy had been a dour old Vulcan, and it had been his favorite word.

After a few minutes of the doctor's intense scrutiny, the use of several scanners and a brain wave detector which Nyota suspected was completely unnecessary, the man finally stepped back from her with a sigh, “you, my dear, I perfectly fine and fit for duty.”

“Thank you, doctor,” she smiled, slipping down from the biobed. “Am I cleared to go on the away mission?” Part of her, not very deep down, was secretly hoping he would say 'no', if only to be a curmudgeon and annoy Kirk.

“You're cleared,” McCoy answered, arranging his tools neatly back into their special niches. “Oh, and Lieutenant,” he looked up at her, catching for her a moment with his pale blue eyes, “make sure Jim wears the hearing protection.”

“I will, doctor,” she smiled reassuringly. She doubted the captain would need her to babysit him, but she made a mental note to check his ears anyway, just to be safe. She turned to Spock and signed her goodbyes to him. He gave her a quick, dismissive gesture in return, already focused on the screen of his personal work station. She knew this was the best she would get, so she departed.

Nyota made a quick stop at her quarters to change boots. She had a pair she liked to wear for away missions. More comfortable for walking. Some of the girls had given them to her as a gift when she began getting called down to more missions. She went to her locker and extracted her personal tricorder. She had been tweaking this one, getting it just the way she liked it. She'd boosted the signal output so that it could be used to get a message to the ship, even under heavy interference. All she had to do was run a thin cable from it to her communicator. She hoped soon to make the connection wireless, but she hadn't had the time.

She was so focused on her task that she had all but forgotten about the sound, which was still buzzing in the background of her hearing. She forgot it, that is, until it was suddenly gone. Her head snapped up and she marched to the communicator panel on her wall, opening a line to the bridge. The strange sound did not come back to her when she did so. “Lieutenant Uhura to the bridge.”

“Bridge here, ma'am.”

She recognized the voice. “Smith, did you clean up the excess chatter looping through the comm system?”

“Yes ma'am. The captain sent an order to do it. I didn't even know it was there until-”

“Very good, Smith,” she cut him off, flipping the switch to end the call and moving back to her table where she had laid out her things. With the doctor's insistence on clearing her for duty so thoroughly she was left with little time to prepare. She pulled the tricorder strap over her shoulder and headed out the door towards the transporter room.

~~~~~

Trips with the transporter were always unnerving to her. She wasn't as edgy about them as McCoy was, but they still made her feel a little uncomfortable. Especially standing on the pad waiting to dematerialize. Then there was that odd, fragmenting feeling she couldn't quite place.

With that same feeling, and the whining whoosh of the mechanism at work, there they were, down in the colony's HQ on Nervra Prime.

The place was eery and deserted. Nyota stayed in one place for a moment, getting a feel for her surroundings as the captain, Engineer Scott and the security officer they had brought with them, moved about the room. All of them wore hearing protection which doubled as communication so they could talk to one another, but at the moment the group was quiet and Nyota felt the odd, oppressive push of silence. No footfalls, no distant creaks or groans from the building, no ping of an abandoned instrument panel. She wished someone would speak, just to break the silence.

The captain headed for what was obviously the main control panel in the center of the room where the colony's lead engineer might have sat. He was already tinkering. Scotty went another way, having spotted a panel on the wall which had been mysteriously pulled open, exposing wires.

“Sirs,” Nyota finally spoke and almost jumped. Her voice sounded thunderous as the only thing she could hear. Both men looked over at her. “I'm going to let in a little bit of the ambient noise, just to see if I can find anything out.”

“Alright,” Kirk said, “but be careful. Bones will never let me live it down if I get anyone else's eardrums destroyed.”

Nyota nodded and took up her tricorder, carefully turning a dial. All of their tricorders and personal communicators were tied wirelessly to their ear pieces. It was truly impressive what Scotty and his team could whip up on such short notice.

The sound trickled in as she fractionally turned the nob. She recognized it at once. It bounced around the walls of the empty room, echoing and repeating endlessly. Nyota could still picture it in her mind. The bubble of pulsating sound she and Spock had unraveled when they had melded. She tilted her head, and unconscious gesture as she concentrated. Her brows came together. “Captain, if you can find a way to cut the feed so the sound stops looping through the internal comm system-”

“Right,” Kirk gave her a winning smile which might have weakened the knees of a lesser woman. He continued to work on the panel and after a few moments there was a whirring sound and the noise finally died. Nyota raised her tricorder, watching the little screen showing sound waves. It was only picking up their various footfalls, breathing, and the the click of Kirk flipping switches. It no longer detected the sound which had incapacitated Spock.

Nyota moved to stand beside the captain. “May I?” she asked, her hands hovering over the controls. They were Star Fleet standard, so she felt right at home.

Kirk moved aside to let her have a look at the communication system. He walked over to watch as Scotty investigated the open panel. The security officer was already kneeling, taking instruction from the Scotsman. Nyota focused on her own work. She knew she could easily uncover the commander's log. It would be encrypted, but if she had any luck it would be lightly so. Most did not bother with layers of encryption on logs like this. NP1's commander turned out to be no different. It only took her a few moments to sort out his encryption. Then she picked up the ear piece from its little holder on the console and listened. Artfully turning a nob she adjusted the timeline of the log.

A few moments later she narrowed down the moment when the distress signal began transmitting, then she rewound the log and listened as the commander laid out the unfortunately tale of his colony. She looked up occasionally to watch Scotty working on the open panel. He had pulled out a few more wires and opened a tool box beside him. The captain had grown disinterested in the engineer's work and roamed on, checking down corridors, investigating other rooms.

Nyota felt concerned for her captain at first, wandering around the seemingly abandoned place, even if he did have his phaser at the ready. She tried to focus on her own task, knowing the captain was a skill fighter and explorer. After perhaps fifteen minutes of listening to the base's commander relate the mysterious disappearances of his people, Nyota suddenly had a new and urgent worry. She set down the earpiece, “Mister Scott!” she said, her voice too loud in the eerily quiet room.

The engineer looked up from his work, spanner in his hand. “What is it, Lassy?”

“Come away from that panel!” she started to move around the control desk to reach the two men. Too late. The security officer, Jenkins, still had a hand inside the panel, holding something in place for Scott. The man gazed up at her, wide eyes, as he slowly vanished.

“What?!” Scott jumped back from the spot where Jenkins had been only moments before.

“Oh no!” Nyota gritted her teeth. If only she had weeded through the commander's log faster. Narrowed it down sooner. “The device that did this to the people of this station. It's in there.” she gestured to the panel.

Scott drew away from it, kicking his tools clear with a toe. “Great scott!” the engineer exclaimed. “But how? Didn't they know it was there?”

“They narrowed it down too late,” Nyota explained, standing well away from the exposed wires. “It's an alien device. They think it was transported in there, but they didn't find it until there were only a few people still here. We need to get away from it. Proximity will cause us to phase out sooner!” Nyota moved to Scott, grasping his arm. “We need to call the captain and get out of here!” She glanced in the direction of the panel where Jenkins had vanished.

“Worry not, Lass,” Scott said, putting his hand over hers and reaching for his communicator with the other, flipping it open with a practiced wrist motion, “we'll find a way to save Jenkins and everyone else here.” he got a hold of the captain and as Nyota contacted the transporter room on the Enterprise. Only a few moments longer and the captain had joined them, the group beaming back up to the safety of the ship.

“Well done finding out that information before it was too late,” The captain congratulated Nyota. “We'll need you to come with Scotty and me to engineering to tell us exactly what you heard so we can figure out how to counter it.”

Nyota followed, still feeling guilty that she hadn't been quick enough to save poor Jenkins from his unfortunate, if potentially reversible, fate. She had little time to think of it, however, as she was bustled along to the turbo lift.

In engineering she explained the situation as best she could to the waiting workmen, who, under Scott's supervision, began to create an device to counter what had happened to the colonists on the planet. The alien device had caused all of the men and women of NP1 to go out of phase with their current reality. It was unclear where, exactly, they had ended up, but Scott spoke up, “It might not matter, sir. This device should work a bit like a transporter. It will isolate their biological signals and we should be able to draw them back into our own reality.”

“I admit, I didn't understand it all,” Nyota shrugged, hoping she had recalled everything correctly. She had a good memory, especially for things she heard. Years of training and practice had taught her mind to retain communications and important orders, even in the middle of a firefight. Still, she wasn't completely certain that she had gotten every detail. She would have to rely on the abilities and knowledge of the Enterprise's immensely skilled engineering staff to fill in the blanks.

Finally, when she had helped all she could, she was ordered to return to the bridge and her duty station. There would be no need for her to go back to the planet. Only essential engineers would be beaming down briefly with the device. She knew she would be at her best keeping a line open to these men so that they could be beamed up at a moment's notice, or relay any other crucial information.

~~~~~

On the bridge, her station reclaimed, Nyota placed the familiar earpiece in her ear and listened, flipping through channels to ensure everything was clear. Shortly the captain came onto the bridge, and behind him Nyota was pleased to see Spock, looking healthy and completely recovered. His eyes caught herself a moment as though to silently greet and reassure her, though perhaps she imagined it. It wasn't exactly common for Spock to be concerned over that sort of thing.

“Open a channel to Mr Scott,” the captain ordered.

Nyota's hands fluttered over the buttons as she did as Kirk commanded with the ease of muscle memory. In less than a second the channel was open. Scott was down on the planet once again. She flipped another switch and the engineer's face appeared on the main viewing screen. Behind him his men were setting up their device. The captain sat forward, “Scotty, how are we doing?”

“Well, sir,” the chief engineer replied with a curt nod. “We're minding our time carefully. Can't have any more of my men disappearing.”

As the bridge crew tensely watched the engineers work Doctor McCoy joined them on the bridge, making several pointed remarks on behalf of the banished colonists. “This is why you wouldn't catch me living on some alien planet,” the man grumbled, leaning back against the rail, his arms folded. “Too much alien mumbo-jumbo could happen.”

Nyota fought back the urge to point out that McCoy instead spent his life on a vessel of exploration, which encountered a sizable amount of 'alien mumbo-jumbo'.

“The device is set, captain,” Scott reported. He glanced back towards his men, “and activated.” Behind him a motor-like object the size of a human head was suspended atop the spindly, metallic legs of a tripod. A blue light began blinking and it emitted a gentle whirring sound.

“Well done. Beam back immediately,” Kirk advised.

“Right away sir.”

Moments later they men vanished from the screen in with the blur of light and the high pitched whine of transport. Then the bridge crew sat silently, hearing only the ping of various instruments and the hum of the device on the view screen. Only Nyota was more alert. While her eyes were on the screen she was also listening through the various channels for any sign of trouble. None came.

Before all of their watchful eyes people slowly began to materialize in the control room on NP1. They wore the more casual uniforms of colonial officers, as well as one baffled looking red-shirted Enterprise security officer.

The man who was clearly the commander of the colony was the first notice the screen, and the watching faces of the Enterprise crew. He peered at them for a confused moment, then smiled broadly. “I knew Star Fleet would send the best!”

Nyota grinned. The universal translator could render his language understood by them all, but it could not disguise his Russian accent.

“I'm James T. Kirk,” the captain introduced with one of his signature cocky grins, “though I suspect you already knew that. Please, tell us what happened to you?”

The commander related the events, which Nyota already knew from his log, which led up to the disappearance of the entire colony's population. Then he told of what they had experienced while phased out of their own dimension. “The aliens who did this weren't trying to harm us. They didn't understand us, and why we were on their planet, so they worked tirelessly to find a way to communicate with us. What they did instead was draw us all into their dimension. We met them, came to understand that they have been native to this planet, though we would have had no way to tell they were present. We explained this, and they had no intent to harm us, but they also had no way to send us back to our own plane. Thank goodness you came along and figured it all out, captain.”

For some hours the captain communicated with the men and women of the colony. Plans were made to attempt further communication with the alien race, hopefully in a much safer way.

By the time she was reaching the end of her duty shift Nyota already had a full day planned for the next morning. She would be needed to aid in these communications, along with the scientific skill of Commander Spock, the improvisational engineering talents of Mr Scott and, of course, Captain Kirk's extensive diplomatic training. For now she smiled with satisfaction, placing her ear piece back into her ear and listening to an open channel for a moment. The soothing sounds of space singing in her ear, accompanied by the chatter of a happy crew and, of course, the sweet lullaby of the Enterprise humming below it all.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was meant to behave like an episode of the original series as well as get the spotlight on one of my favorite characters. I feel like I succeeded well enough :) I hope it brings you joy


End file.
